Healthy and happy

Family recipes get a lean and tasty makeover

Charterhouse for Families counselors spend their days working with parents, many of them immigrants. They teach them how to prepare their young children for school, teach them how to read to them, play with them, talk to them.

Admission: $50; available through Thursday by calling (209) 476-1106 or online at charterhousecenter.org

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Charterhouse for Families counselors spend their days working with parents, many of them immigrants. They teach them how to prepare their young children for school, teach them how to read to them, play with them, talk to them.

During the lesson on how to best feed them, counselors heard the same refrain.

Husbands entrenched in the food of their culture weren't going to give up their favorite ethnic foods for a broiled chicken breast and plate of steamed vegetables.

"Food is so ingrained in our emotional lives," said Mikey Kamienski, executive director of Charterhouse. "It's there when we're happy and when we're sad. Taking away foods doesn't help. But, what if we take a third or half of the calories away? We can teach them they can still have them, but they need to modify what they do during the week so they can have what they want during special occasions."

With that idea in mind, Charterhouse solicited favorite family recipes from clients and turned them over to local chefs Richard Hyman, of Mezzo in Stockton, and Ruben Larrazolo, of Lodi's Alebrijes Mexican Bistro, and asked them to make the dishes healthier.

The result thus far is about 20 modified recipes that have been distributed at San Joaquin Food Bank, local community centers and through the federally funded health and nutrition program Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

Among the recipes submitted was one for a chicken casserole made with creamy canned soup that was converted into a chicken salad, and a spaghetti and meatball recipe with turkey meatballs and whole-wheat pasta replacing lard and fatty meat.

"That was easy, knowing ingredients and good alternatives, from experience," Hyman said. "Instead of butter use olive oil. Instead of sour cream, use some half and half and milk."

Even reducing the fat and calorie content of family favorites isn't too tough.

"When you alter those recipes, there will be a difference in taste," Hyman said. "Grandma or Great Grandma might not think it tastes the same, or like it as much, but I don't think it changes the outcome of the dish. If you put low-fat shortening or olive oil in tamales, you won't see that much difference. The flavor you get from lard, which is big in tamales, you compensate with more savory ingredients like garlic, onion, salt and pepper."

Making recipes healthier is something the chef has been doing at his own restaurant for years.

"Without a doubt, customers are far more interested in eating healthy, and are watching their fat and calorie intake," Hyman said. "At my restaurant, recipes we use here are intrinsically leaner and more healthy. It's the nature of the food we cook. Italian food is based on more healthy ingredients and less fat."

Some of the recipes he's altered for Charterhouse haven't been to make them leaner and healthier, but to make them more usable for every cook.

Gone are the "pinch of this, dab of that," and in are actual measurements.

The work, although a bit time consuming, is a labor of love, Hyman said.

"I'm really behind what she's doing at Charterhouse," Hyman said. "It's local and you can see the impact immediately for Stockton. National charities are fantastic, but I like the local aspect, of helping and getting results in your own backyard."

Charterhouse for Families sends counselors to homes every week, working with parents, often immigrant, whose language barriers and inexperience here makes it difficult for them to prepare their children for school and American culture. It serves 700 people in the most remote areas of the county, from the Delta Islands to rural Lodi and Linden.

The organization also conducts a 20-week program called Parent Leadership Training Institute that is open to anyone interested in civic leadership and elected office.

Proceeds from Sunday's brunch help pay for the programs, and ultimately, so will the recipe alteration project.

Those recipes,which will eventually be available at charterhousecenter.org, and soon once a month on MyRecord in The Record, will be collected in a cookbook that Kamienski hopes will be available in the fall.

Pacific Gas and Electric, Health Plan of San Joaquin and Wal-Mart have agreed to fund the publishing costs, and Kamienski is looking for members of the community to contribute their family recipes.

She's already gotten business owners and elected officials to serve as models for Charterhouse's fundraising brunch and fashion show on Sunday. Now, she wants them to share their favorite recipes, which will then be modified by the two chefs.

"Anyone in the community can submit a recipe to be changed, and we're asking those who have already changed their recipes to submit them," Kamienski said. "I want the VIPs in town and everyone. I'm also sending letters out nationally. I have my husband watching the Food Network to get the names of chefs and places I can send letters."

A VIP section from celebrities near and far is just one planned part of the cookbook. She also would like a children's section.

There's not blueprint for the book, Kamiennski said.

"When I was at the capital for (an event), they had a couple of California cookbooks, from some church groups, things like that. I liked the format, but it was nothing like we're doing, getting recipes from the community."